7. Thea GilmoreAvalanche

I could have picked any of the Thea albums and I would have been pretty much as happy. Avalanche is probably the one that has more songs that are my favourites on it than any of the other ones. I find it very peculiar that she’s never ‘popped’… I first found her stuff on an Uncut CD, and went, “I don’t know who this person is but she’s amazing.” Got her stuff, started playing her while I was working. And also the other lovely thing about the internet, I mentioned on my blog how much I was enjoying working with Thea in the background, and got an e-mail from Thea saying, “Glad you like it.” That never happened pre-internet! I’ve driven a long way to see her over the years; I’ve done a six-hour drive to Chicago to go and watch her play a tiny gig. I just think she’s fantastic. I think she’s, again, this smart, literate songwriter singing songs about things that matter and things that matter to her. She has a song called ‘When Did You Get So Safe’ that isn’t on this album, which became almost my mantra while I was at one point where I was starting to feel that I was becoming safe because I was popular. And I didn’t like being safe. And it meant a lot to have that in the back of my head and go, “I’m not gonna do that, I’m not gonna be that.”